Category Archives: France

This year has felt like paddling upstream. That sense of struggling against a current that is so intense that you can’t see the progress being made until you find a safe beach to pull off on. So here I am, Continue reading →

Ostensibly, I went to the alps this summer for writing. For whatever reason, often, I found myself drawing instead. I have a history as an art major (no degree, just lots of studio time, a healthy appetite for criticism, and outlandish ideas about the inessential role of beauty in human forms of expression). This is to say, I used to draw all the time. Continue reading →

Traveling has left me caught in an expanding web of magnificent eccentrics. Last night I had dinner with a pair of mountain bikers I met in Chamonix this summer. Though we’ve known each other less than three months, I knew by the light in their eyes – knew by the grin that started in the right corner of Tom’s mouth and didn’t stop until the left corner of Gloria’s (across the room) – that their latest expedition was a grade A sufferfest. A two hour bike ride that turned into eight, uphill over roots and boulders, through the viscous, silty mud that forms in the rain that really hasn’t stopped falling all season. Only a coke and a few madeline’s to sustain them. Continue reading →

I woke up last Wednesday, pine sap matting a wad of hair to the back of my scalp, just above the beginnings of a redneck sunburn the likes of which I haven’t experienced since high school; before sunscreen was a thing. The previous days’ outfit lay strewn about my bedroom, covered in a Jackson Pollock masterwork of bar-b-que sauce, forest floor dampness, the black smudges of charcoal, pine needles, and a dash of red wine stains. None of this is bad; it’s glorious. Continue reading →